Why do you believe in Creationism or Evolution?

[emmy27sf]

so why do u believe in evolution or creationism???

[Aximili23]

so why do u believe in evolution or creationism???

Evidence.

There is a lack of evidence for both sides of the argument, so you have to have a little faith to believe in them.

Oh, so the Journal of Evolutionary Biology is full of blank pages?

[diciple_of_light]

so why do u believe in evolution or creationism???

Evidence.

There is a lack of evidence for both sides of the argument, so you have to have a little faith to believe in them.

Oh, so the Journal of Evolutionary Biology is full of blank pages?

The point I was trying to make was that pieces are missing from both sides of the argument.

[Aximili23]

The point I was trying to make was that pieces are missing from both sides of the argument.

Perhaps. But on the side of creationism it is the entire puzzle that is missing.

[Titan]

I wouldn't say that the pieces are missing. It is more like you have to many pieces for the picture you are trying to make.

[Jose]

The point I was trying to make was that pieces are missing from both sides of the argument.

Perhaps. But on the side of creationism it is the entire puzzle that is missing.

I wouldn't say that the pieces are missing. It is more like you have to many pieces for the picture you are trying to make.

I'm confused here. From what I've been able to tell, the creationism argument has one piece: the bible. There is otherwise no evidence from God's Creation that it was created as the bible says (or as any other holy book says--and they are not all the same). By contrast, there are thousands of pieces for the evolution "puzzle." They can all be put into a coherent framework that makes sense, both internally and externally. It does happen to contradict the biblical story if that story is interpreted according to one version of "literally." Sure, there are pieces missing from the puzzle, but at least there are actual pieces.

This is not to say that there are not people who claim otherwise. Usually, as we see from reading through this thread, the claims are based on things like the probability of a bacterial cell assembling all at once from miscellaneous chemicals. We would all agree that the probability is so low that it would never happen--which is fine, because that's not what the Theory of Evolution describes. It's pretty easy to invent goofy scenarios and claim that they can't happen. It's much more difficult to attack real evolution this way, probably because it actually makes sense.

[Titan]

I'm confused here. From what I've been able to tell, the creationism argument has one piece: the bible.

They have evidence, there is one movie called "Young Earth" and it gives supposed "proof" that the earth is young. If you aren't careful it can be very convincing.

[Jose]

I'm confused here. From what I've been able to tell, the creationism argument has one piece: the bible.

They have evidence, there is one movie called "Young Earth" and it gives supposed "proof" that the earth is young. If you aren't careful it can be very convincing.

Yes, there is, indeed evidence. It includes the fact that there is salt in the ocean, only a modest amount of sediment on the ocean floor, and polonium haloes. It's easy to present evidence supporting one's favorite idea if one is happy to leave out the contraditory bits, and not look too closely at the evidence itself.

[axeplayer]

#1 COSMIC: From the theorized Big Bang of (estimated) 14-20 billion years ago to the (evolution or) generation of hydrogen gas into existence.

#2 CHEMICAL: Gases (beyond hydrogen) and other higher elements evolving into existence. In other words, increasing molecular & chemical order and complexity over time happening by itself.

#3 STAR & PLANETS: Gravity, angular momentum, magnetism, radiation, and other "accidentally existing" forces coalesce (or evolve) the molecules (from above) that evolved into existence all by themselves into subsequent proto-stars, then later (over lots and lots of theorized time; billions of years) into stars and planetary bodies.

#4 ORGANIC EVOLUTION: Life emerging from sterile non-life by believed automatic advanced chemical processes. This has also been called spontaneous generation or more recently abiogenesis. Life from non-life; again, all by itself; increasing complexity and at some point in time - generating successive replication all by itself. Scientists today are using tax dollars to employ advanced, state-of-the-art equipment under expensive, carefully controlled high-technology laboratory conditions but this still hasn't succeeded in any way yet ... trying so hard ... all to show that life could happen accidentally, without much intelligence. (That being the case indeed.)

#5 MACRO-EVOLUTION: Kinds of life diverging and occasionally increasing in complexity through random processes down through time. The theory is that single-celled creatures gave rise to (possibly) multi-cellular marine organisms. Later fish evolved into amphibians, and then into reptiles which (possibly diverged and) evolved into the birds and mammals. Over the theorized millions of years the divergent complexity of life in nature has (apparently) increased in order, numbers and magnitude. Many of today's textbooks show lots of artistic illustrations of such beliefs.

#6 MICRO-EVOLUTION: Structured changes within pre-existing kinds of life. Heredity & Variation. This one is scientific and is observable in nature.


Evolutionists will contend that the universe (Evolution #1 thru #3) and then successive forms of life (Evolution #4 and #5) slowly got more complex all by themselves. These beliefs are well illustrated in textbooks. (The alternative of literal, recent creation is completely unacceptable to even be considered by them.) They'll claim that (God made lots of mistakes and that) there are transitional fossils supporting their belief system. Then they'll use something like the beaks on Darwin's Finches (Evolution #6) as evidence of all of this. Au Contraire! We can definitely see that Evolution #6 worked fine, but they're still lacking any evidence to support their (underlying; as sinners) desire to (putting it bluntly here) hide from our Creator and their responsibilities as part of the created. In other words, Evolution #6 is truly scientific, but that should not give us any confidence in Evolution #1 thru #5. Beak variations in finches (Evolution #6) is to be expected since Darwin's Finches were wisely designed. Built-in variation has been wisely balanced with the (heredity) built-in limits that the Designer placed there. Wise design! Thank the Maker!

Concerning Evolution #1 thru #3 - this sure looks like pure speculation! The Big Bang is primarily believed because without it they'd have to admit that God created everything.
If ... "God" created the universe then, logically, nothing in life is more important than finding out just who that God is and why we were created. But many persons would prefer to hide from this inconvenient reality. Therefore the Big Bang theory (though defying true science, i.e. that "every action has an equal and opposite reaction") is believed and promulgated, but it is inherently unscientific in nature. A Little Bang happening all by itself in a small box has a greater chance of probability than a Big Bang containing (theoretically) all the matter in the known universe.
(http://creationism.org/topbar/evolution.htm)

[micatala]

There is a lot to reply to, and I will address just one issue.

Can complexity increase through random processes?

I would say yes. Snowflakes are often cited as one example. Snowflakes arise through random combinations of ice crystals, and yet display a great deal of complexity, even though they are made mostly from one molecule.

Also, there is a difference between what I would call random behavior, and what might be described as completely chaotic behavior. In completely chaotic behavior, there is no discernible structure, no way to make even probability estimates on what might happen. I think there is often an assumption that 'random' and 'chaotic' are essentially the same. Hoyle's famous 747 out of a tornado I think is one example of this confusion.

On the other hand, flipping a coin is random but there are two very well-defined possibilities and we know what their probabilities are. Now, I am not a chemist, but it seems to me that evolution is more like the coin and less like chaos. There may be many more possibilities when two chemicals combine or a gene mutates than there is with a coin, but their is a structure which puts conditions on what can happen. Provided there is enough structure, or the right kind of structure, in the physical or biological laws, then 'randomness' can certainly produce complexity.

Consider one coin. Flip it once, you get two possibilities. Pretty simple.

Now flip a billion coins. Each has only two possibilities, but the possible combinations of how the coins can come up can be very complex.

Now flip a billion collections of coins, each of a billion coins. Lots and lots of randomness. But, if you measure one possible structure, the number of heads in each of the billion groups, and look at the distribution, you will get a very well-structured normal "bell-shaped" curve. Lots of structure from a completely random event, all because the laws that define what can happen in the individual events is very well-defined.

In my opinion, it is very easy to imagine this type of thing accounting for at least #2 and #3 in your list. #4 and #5 might be more difficult, at least for us non-experts, but there isn't any reason to rule them out, and there is a lot of observable data to suggest they did happen in roughly the way science describes.

[USIncognito]

Ah yes, Hovind's infamous straw man conflating a Cosmology, Physics and Chemistry, Astrophysics, Geology, Abiogenesis and Biology...

#1 COSMIC: From the theorized Big Bang of (estimated) 14-20 billion years ago to the (evolution or) generation of hydrogen gas into existence.

Up front, the Big Bang theory was hypothesized by a Catholic priest so there's no real conflict between it and Chrisitanity. The difference in the scientific validity of the statement "a singularity started expanding" and "God said Bang!" is non-existent. Both have equal support.

#2 CHEMICAL: Gases (beyond hydrogen) and other higher elements evolving into existence. In other words, increasing molecular & chemical order and complexity over time happening by itself.

And yet, the reason you can read this statement is precisely because of that happening. It's happening right now. The Sun, in it's nuclear furnace, is currently going about the task of converting hydrogen to helium and helium into heavier elements. It's simple physics.

#3 STAR & PLANETS: Gravity, angular momentum, magnetism, radiation, and other "accidentally existing" forces coalesce (or evolve) the molecules (from above) that evolved into existence all by themselves into subsequent proto-stars, then later (over lots and lots of theorized time; billions of years) into stars and planetary bodies.

Yep. And we have found a myriad of stellar nursaries around the Universe. The Hubble telescope has taken some magnificent images of stars forming within the Eagle Nebula. The evidence isn't as robust for planetary accretion, but the main problems with that theory are we're finding gas giants closer to the sun than the theory predicted.

#4 ORGANIC EVOLUTION: Life emerging from sterile non-life by believed automatic advanced chemical processes. This has also been called spontaneous generation or more recently abiogenesis. Life from non-life; again, all by itself; increasing complexity and at some point in time - generating successive replication all by itself. Scientists today are using tax dollars to employ advanced, state-of-the-art equipment under expensive, carefully controlled high-technology laboratory conditions but this still hasn't succeeded in any way yet ... trying so hard ... all to show that life could happen accidentally, without much intelligence. (That being the case indeed.)

Actually abiogenesis is completely different from spontaneous generation, despite the fallacious bifurcation. Spontanous generation proposed that adult flies formed from rotting meat, and that goslings formed from barnacles. Abiogenesis proposes that primordial self-replicating chemicals (like polymers) eventually led to self-replicating cells.

As far as experiments go, the lab might be precisely the wrong place to investigate abiogenesis, since we find evidence for how it likely occured in oceanic fumiroles.

#5 MACRO-EVOLUTION: Kinds of life diverging and occasionally increasing in complexity through random processes down through time. The theory is that single-celled creatures gave rise to (possibly) multi-cellular marine organisms. Later fish evolved into amphibians, and then into reptiles which (possibly diverged and) evolved into the birds and mammals. Over the theorized millions of years the divergent complexity of life in nature has (apparently) increased in order, numbers and magnitude.

Everyone knows a single cell can't become a multi-celled organism right? That's crazy!... So explain the embryo?

I don't have a link, but will provide one if necessary, but on Talk Origins, there is an essay entitled "29 Evidences for Macroevolution." Read it, read the Creationist responses to it, and read what is wrong with those responses.

Many of today's textbooks show lots of artistic illustrations of such beliefs.

That is false. Todays textbooks are filled with actual photo examples of fossil transitionals (as is the Internet), plus this tired old straw man (a wildly fallacious extrapolation from Haekel's embryos and Nebraska Man) completely ignores the DNA evidence. In sales terms, that's called "bait and switch."

#6 MICRO-EVOLUTION: Structured changes within pre-existing kinds of life. Heredity & Variation. This one is scientific and is observable in nature.

Technically the differentiation between macro and micro doesn't exist. There is only evolution. Some scientists adopt the language of creationists in order to make a point.

One aside about the scientific method. Scientific observation does not mean direct observation necessarily. What it means is observing verifications of predictions. Science (and in the case of evolution, Darwin specifically) made a lot of predictions as the theory of evolution first coalesced. In the intervening time, fossil and genetic observations have again and again verified those predictions.

The conclusive statements of your cut and paste are more about apologetics than scientific evidence, so I'll leave them unaddressed.